Motorola makes long lasting Bluetooth headsets with great voice quality and build quality. The new Motorola H19txt follows the H-txt line and offers HD Audio Plus and CrystalTalk dual mic technology, pairing with Bluetooth and via NFC, A2DP audio streaming as well as Motorola's own My MotoSpeak app for texting hands-free. The Bluetooth headset is small yet comfortable to wear with talk time reaching 9 hours and standby time of up to 15 days.

Design

The Motorola H19txt Bluetooth headset is very light and small but not too small to be comfortable to wear. The headset measures 2.12 x 0.69 x 0.43 inches and weighs 0.32 ounces. The design is similar to previous H-txt models with a flip-open boom that functions as power switch. The Motorola has easy-to-use controls including a Call button on the front of the headset, volume buttons on the side as well as an LED light as charging, pairing, call and battery status indicator. The headset has two microphones for noise canceling and an earpiece on the back. A micro USB charging port lives on top of the headset and you can charge it with included short USB/micro USB cable and AC adapter.

The Motorola H19txt Bluetooth headset comes with two ear hooks in difference sizes and two in-ear gels for those who wear eyeglasses, though the small ear hook doesn't really get in the way of wearing glasses. The headset feels comfortable to wear in either configuration. The ear hook is great for jogging with your headset and works for either ear, but it creates some pressure on your ear. The in-ear gel feels more comfortable to wear for a long period of time, and it's actually quite secure even for slow jogging.

Pairing and Features

The Motorola H19txt has built-in Bluetooth 3.0 that supports Headset, Hands-free and A2DP audio streaming and Serial Port Profile. It has EasyPair feature that will enter the security code automatically. It also supports multi-pairing that allows the headset pair with several devices. We tested the Motorola with several Android devices as well as iPhone models. It paired with all easily via Bluetooth. The Motorola H19txt also supports pairing via NFC where you can simply put the headset near an NFC enabled phone for a couple of seconds, it will automatically pair and connect with your phone. We tested it with several smartphones that support NFC including the Samsung Galaxy S III, the HTC One X and the Sony Xperia ion, as well as the Motorola RAZR M. The only phone that paired with the Motorola H19txt via NFC was the Motorola RAZR M. Other phones didn't recognize the NFC tag.

The most useful feature on the Motorola H19txt is the ever-present voice guidance that walks you through all actions and takes the guesswork out of using Bluetooth. These actions include pairing, battery status, incoming call announcement as well as voice dialing prompts. Thanks to the same design as the last H-txt headsets, the Motorola has RapidConnect feature where you can open the flip quickly and answer a call. It's not only super convenient without having to fuss with buttons, but also saves battery - when you're not in a call just close the flip to put the headset off. When you open the flip, the headset immediately connects to the phone you last connected it with and the voice guidance announces the talk time left on the battery.

The Motorola H19txt supports most Bluetooth Hands-free profile features including last number redialing, answer/rejecting calls, answering second incoming call and mute/unmute voice. The Motorola H19txt also works with My MotoSpeak app for Android which allows you to send and receive text message without using your phone. It does voice recognition to type out the text message for you and read incoming messages. The app is reasonably intuitive and works reliably.

Audio Quality and Range

The Motorola H19txt has excellent audio quality, especially if you're using it with a Motorola phone. We tested it with several Motorola Android smartphones including the Motorola Atrix HD, the Motorola RAZR M and the Motorola RAZR, the headset sounded crystal clear on both incoming and outgoing ends, and volume was also good. The DSP worked most efficiently when working with the Motorola phones, filtering out road noise and wind noise which was quite impressive. The range was also very good, easily reaching 30 feet.

The Motorola H19txt works with other phones nicely also, but voice quality isn't as good as with Motorola phones. We tested the Bluetooth headset with other Android phones including the HTC One X and also the iPhone 4. Voice was clear on the HTC One X on both incoming and outgoing but volume wasn't as high. The DSP worked very well with the HTC One X and range was good. With the iPhone 4, the Motorola H19txt sounded a bit distorted. Our call recipients could easily tell we were on a Bluetooth headset, but we had no trouble holding a smooth conversation. The volume on the iPhone 4 was super loud however, and the DSP did its job efficiently. The range between the iPhone 4 and the Motorola H19txt was about 20 feet.

As the Motorola H19txt has A2DP support, you can actually listen to music or watch video using the Bluetooth headset to stream audio. Since it's a mono headset, the audio that sounds nice but not as nice as stereo headsets.

Battery Life

The Motorola H19txt has built-in rechargeable Lithium Polymer battery. The headset comes with an AC charger that's 100-204V input and 5.1V output. The headset also comes with a short USB cable, and you can use a computer or the AC charger to charge the headset. The Motorola H19txt has very good battery life. Talk time went beyond claimed 9 hours for us and standby time was over 2 weeks. To conserve power, the headset uses the flip boom as power control. Though the headset will automatically go to sleep one minute after a call or 20 minutes after inactivity, you can help save more battery life by closing the boom when you're not using it. The headset reconnects to the last connected device very quickly when you open the boom and certainly will not make you miss a call because it's sleeping when a call comes in.

Conclusion

We have come to expect clear audio, loud volume, good noise canceling and long range from Motorola Bluetooth headsets, and the Motorola H19txt doesn't disappoint. The headset has excellent voice guidance to provide convenience not only for making and receiving phone calls, but for keeping you updated on the headset's pairing status, battery status and more. Audio quality is outstanding when working with Motorola smartphones and most other Android and iPhone models. The volume is good and range is excellent. Battery life is also good thanks to the power management with the boom. The headset is comfortable to wear and comes with two ear hooks and several ear gels in different sizes. It works with Moto's My MotoSpeak app for sending and receiving text via voice recognition.